Project description:Endothelial cells form a barrier between the contents of the blood and adipocytes. We hypothesized that during cancer cachexia development, transcriptomic changes alter angiocrine signals to contribute to adipose tissue remodelling. We used microarrays to observe changes in gene expression in endothelial cells isolated from subcutaneous fat of mice during pre-cachexia.
Project description:The regulatory gene pathways underlying the loss of adipose tissue in cancer cachexia are unknown and were explored using pangenomic transcriptome profiling. Gene expression profiles (Human Gene 1.0 ST) of abdominal subcutaneous adipose tissue were studied in gastrointestinal cancer patients with (N=13) or without (N=14) cachexia. Data analyses were performed using the Affymetrix GeneChip Operating Software (GCOS) Version 1.4.
Project description:Cancer cachexia is a severe systemic wasting disease that negatively affects quality of life and survival in patients with cancer. To date, treating cancer cachexia is still a major unmet clinical need. We recently discovered the destabilization of the AMPK complex in adipose tissue as a key event in cachexia-related adipose tissue dysfunction and developed an AAV-based approach to prevent AMPK degradation and prolong cachexia-free survival. Here, we show the development and optimization of a prototypic peptide, Pen-X-ACIP, where the AMPK stabilizing peptide ACIP is fused to the cell-penetrating peptide moiety penetratin via a propargylic glycine linker to enable late-stage functionalization using click chemistry. Pen-X-ACIP was efficiently taken up by adipocytes, inhibited lipolysis and restored AMPK signaling. Tissue uptake assays showed a favorable uptake profile into adipose tissue upon intraperitoneal injection. Systemic delivery of Pen-X-ACIP into tumor-bearing animals prevented the progression of cancer cachexia without affecting tumor growth, and preserved body weight and adipose tissue mass with no discernable side effects in other peripheral organs, thereby achieving proof-of-concept. As Pen-X-ACIP also exerted its anti-lipolytic activity in human adipocytes, it now provides a promising platform for further (pre)clinical development towards a novel, first-in-class approach against cancer cachexia.
Project description:The aim of the study is to identify genes and pathways associated with muscle and adipose wasting in PDAC cachexia. Muscle and adipose were collected from same individuals to study the concurrent muscle and adipose wasting.
Project description:The regulatory gene pathways underlying the loss of adipose tissue in cancer cachexia are unknown and were explored using pangenomic transcriptome profiling.
Project description:Cachexia is a wasting disorder of adipose tissues that leads to profound weight loss and frailty. One key characteristic of cachexia is elevated resting energy expenditure, which has been linked to increased fat lipolysis and thermogenesis.
Project description:Cancer-associated cachexia (CAC) is a metabolic syndrome characterized by progressive depletion of adipose and muscle tissue which cannot be corrected by conventional nutritional therapy. Adipose tissue, as an important energy storage, could appear obvious loss in early stage of CAC, which becomes a negative factor affecting the quality of life, efficacy of chemotherapy and so on. In order to identify differentially expressed RNAs in adipose tissue of CAC patients with noncachexia patients, we chose three gastric cancer patients with remarkable weight loss as CAC group and three gastric cancer patients without significant weight change within half a year as the control group. We resected a small subcutaneous adipose tissue from the abdomen of these six patients at time of surgery and completed transcriptome sequencing using Illumina platform. Compared with NCBI genome detabase, etc, we finally identified 386 differentially expressed mRNAs, 410 differentially expressed lncRNAs, 66 differentially expressed cirRNAs and 98 differentially expressed miRNAs. We hoped to provide more bases for follow-up study of adipose metabolism in cachexia.
Project description:Cachexia is a wasting disorder of adipose tissues that leads to profound weight loss and frailty. One key characteristic of cachexia is elevated resting energy expenditure, which has been linked to increased fat lipolysis and thermogenesis. Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are serving as new messengers to mediate cell-cell communication in vivo. How tumors induce brown fat activity is unknown. Here, we found that breast cancer increased hypoxia inducible factor 1 subunit alpha (HIF1A) protein modification through extracellular-vesicle-encapsulated miR-204 targeting von Hippel-Lindau tumor suppressor (VHL), plays an important role in wasting by driving lipolysis and thermogenic gene expression in adipose tissues.
Project description:Cachexia is a wasting syndrome characterized by pronounced skeletal muscle loss. In cancer, cachexia associates with increased morbidity and mortality and decreased treatment tolerance. Although advances have been made in understanding the mechanisms of cachexia, translating these advances to the clinic has been challenging. One reason for this shortcoming may be the current animal models that fail to fully recapitulate the etiology of human cancer-induced tissue wasting. Because pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDA) presents with a high incidence of cachexia, we engineered a mouse model of PDA, that we named KPP. KPP mice, similar to PDA patients, progressively lose skeletal and adipose mass as a consequence of their tumors. In addition, KPP muscles exhibit a similar gene ontology to cachectic patients. We envision the KPP model will be a useful resource for advancing our mechanistic understanding and ability to treat cancer cachexia.